Friday, June 8, 2007

As if there was really any doubt

Dear Andrew and Abigail,

My life as your Mommy is full of many things. I am full of hope for your future, full of laughter at the things you say and do, full of love for your little mushy squishy faces, full of prayer for peaceful bedtimes. What it is not full of is accuracy. Or awesome displays of my parenting skills. Or, oh I dunno, remembering things.

I have a planner. Daddy actually referred to it as the bible the other day. I thought I was the only one who did that. So, this planner - Franklin Covey, by the way, live above the line, kids (do as I say, not as I do)! - this planner holds all of our activities. Everything from doctor appointments to baseball games to school vacations to grown up nights out. And when we signed Abby up for ballet class, I promptly wrote down on each and every Thursday "Abby ballet 5:30." As the first day of ballet class approached, we talked a LOT about ballet class in our house. Abby has been practicing dancing on her toes and waving her arms like a butterfly since the first day we went and watched our friend Autumn at her dance class, and that was over a month ago.

Thursday was the big day. I left work a little early (but not quite as early as I had planned), rushed home to get the special ballet clothes and shoes, then back to the baseball field to pick up Abby from while Daddy stayed with Andrew at practice. We got up to the ballet studio and I changed Abby into her beautiful pink ballet clothes in the van before we went inside.

When we got in the studio, I noticed that a lot of the kids waiting looked like they were there for the tap dance class, not ballet. I thought that was just a little odd, since tap class didn't start until after ballet. As we went upstairs, I got a few odd looks from mothers. When we got to the top of the stairs, things finally started to click into place in the dilapidated shack I call my brain. There was a cluster of small ballerinas - all dressed in pink, looking like a flock of peeps, all squishy and sweet. They were, um...finishing up the class.

Yep, Mommy blew it. We were 25 minutes LATE to ballet class, which started at 5:00pm not 5:30. I quickly shoved Abby's ballet shoes on her feet and shoved her out onto the floor so she could "leap over the pond" with the other girls. And I looked for a place to hide. Happily, since Abby is three and doesn't yet have much concept of time, and Andrew wasn't there to rat me out by explaining how much of class she missed, I don't think she noticed that she was lacking anything much at all. On the up side, there are about 25 mothers in our town who are feeling a WHOLE lot better about their parenting skills this week.

Daddy and Fairy Godmother Jody will be taking care of ballet class this week. I know I told you that Mommy will be out of town for work, but the truth is that I had to call in some experts to manage this ballet project. Let's hope they do a better job. It shouldn't be too hard, since I've set the bar nice and low. Your mommy is nothing if not supportive of helping other people feel good about their accomplishments.